234 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 64., Mar. 21. '57. 



Hill. The account is long, and is ably pulled to 

 pieces by Bekker. Perhaps it is only a " great 

 news" sheet; but it professes to be attested by 

 May Hill, the Rector of Beckington, Francis 

 Jesse and Polidore Moss, churchwardens, Christo- 

 pher Brewer and Francis Frank, overseers, and 

 William Muntern and William Cowherd, consta- 

 bles. The parish records may show whether any 

 persons with these names were in office at Beck- 

 ington in 1689. 



John GoodwirCs Four Children. — "Four children 

 of John Goodwin of Boston, who had enjoyed a 

 religious education, and answered it with a to- 

 wardly ingenuity, an example to all for piety, 

 honesty, and industry, were in the year 1688 ar- 

 rested by a very stupendous witchcraft." The 

 witch, an Irishwoman named Glover, was executed 

 at Boston. Cotton Mather attended her. She 

 boasted of her witchcraft, and said that the chil- 

 dren would not be relieved by her death, as 

 " others beside she had a hand in their affliction." 

 Mather prefixes to the statement, " Haec ipse 

 miserrima vidi." He took the eldest girl into his 

 house, and she seems to have amused herself at 

 his expense, going into fits when he began to study 

 his sermon, &c., and getting worse : 



*^ " In the worst of her extravagancies formerly, she was 



more dutiful to myself than I had reason to expect : but 

 now her whole carriage to me was with a sauciness which 

 I was not used anywhere to be treated withal. She would 

 knock at my study door, affirming that ' some one below 

 would be glad to see me,' though there was none that 

 asked for me ; and when I chid her for telling me what 

 was false, her answer was, ' Mrs. Mather is always glad to 

 see you.' "—P. 123. 



(Wonders of the Invisible World, taken from Cot- 

 ton Mather s Ecclesiastical History of New Eng- 

 land, 1702, London, 1834.) 



Ulric Neusser. — 



" Langius tells us of one Ulricus Neusesser, who being 

 grievously tormented with a pain in his side, suddenly 

 felt under his skin, which was j^et whole, an iron nail as 

 he thought. And so it proved when the chirurgeon bad 

 cut it out. But nevertheless his great torments so con- 

 tinued that he cut his own throat. The third day, when 

 he was carried out to be buried, Eucharius Roseubader, 

 and Johannes ab Ettenstet, a great compan}"- of people 

 standing about them, dissected the corpse, and ripping up 

 . the ventricle, found a round piece of wood of a good 

 length, four knives, some even and sharp, others indented 

 like a saw, with other two rough pieces of iron a span 

 long. There was also a ball of hair. This happened at 

 Fugenstall, 1539." — Dr. Henry More, Antidote against 

 Atheism, p. 98., ed. London, 1672. 



Shooting at a Crucifix. — 



" Qui certam fiduciam constituunt in quibusdam no- 

 minibus scriptis, vel verbis etiam sacris aut characteribus 

 ut non vulnerentur, mutilentur aut occidantur: aut qui 

 (quod horrendum dictu est) in die Parasceves sancto 

 adeunt crucem aliquam in bivio, vel trivio, et bombardum 

 post terga in crucem emittunt, ut deinde quemcunque 



velint scopum attingant." — Binsfeld, De Confessionibus 

 Maleficorum, p. 165., Augusta Trevirorum, 1596. 



The DeoiVs Rock. — 



" Zwischen dem Kreuzberg und der Zandt bei Schlicht 

 in der Oberpfalz liegt der Teufelsstein, ein einzelner, 

 grosser felsstein, welchem man schon hinwegschaffen 

 wollte, aber es nicht vermochte : ringsum ist in der gegend 

 kein stein zu sehen. 



" VVenn der Teufel seine reisen machte, pflegte er auf 

 den kirchthiirmen auszuruhen ; aber der kirchthurm in 

 Vilseck war ihm zu spitzig und desshalb wohlte er ihu 

 zerstoren. Er brachte einem grossen stein, welchen er 

 auf dera kopf trugund mit beiden bratzen stiilzte; so be- 

 gegnete er an dem orte wo der Teufelsstein liegt, einera 

 alten weib aus Vilseck, welches er fragte, wie weit nocli 

 der weg dahirsei? dieses trug einen biindel zerrissener 

 schue und autwortete : ' noch sehr weit, ich habe auf dem 

 wege von Vilseck bis daher alle die schue durchgegangen.' 

 Dem Teufel war der weg zu lang und er liess den stein 

 fallen, obgleich er nur noch drei viertel standen nach 

 Vilseck zu gehen gehabt hatte. An dem fels sieht man 

 noch das eingedruckte, dreieckige hiitlein und neben 

 daran die zwei bratzen mit den zehn fingern." — Panzer, 

 Beitrag zur Deutsche Mytlwlogie, ii. 57., Miinchen, 1855. 



I have some doubt whether the Zachary above- 

 described is " the Socinian Lover." I cannot find 

 any mention of Robert Lakeman of Norwich, 

 Robert Devine of Taunton, Maude Robertson, or 

 J. Brian of Yonghal. It appears from Glanvill's 

 Saducismus Triumphatus, p. 313. ed. 1727, that 

 witchcraft prevailed at Youglial in 1661. I hope 

 some other correspondent will be able to complete 

 the answer to J. E, T.'s Query. Hopkins, Jun. 



Garrick Club. 



THE OLD HUNDREDTH PSALM TUNE. 



Allow me, with all brevity, to reply to certain 

 remarks (2""* S. iii. 58.) on the origin of the 

 above-named tune. 



Your correspondent M. C. is correct in what he 

 states respecting the very old Genevan Psalter, in 

 the library of St. Paul's Cathedral. The date of 

 that Psalter, which contains the tune, is, probably, 

 (for it is not certainly stated), 1561. This appears 

 to be the oldest copy of the tune which has yet 

 been discovered. I have a beautiful copy of 1562. 



The article from the Doncaster Gazette has 

 gone the round of our London and Provincial 

 papers, and thus has given impulse to a sad mis- 

 take. By transposing the last two figures of the 

 date of the discovered Psalter, which was cor- 

 rectly given by a Lincoln paper, the Doncaster 

 article printed 1546 for 1564, — rather too late in 

 the day to be of any importance. 



No one, at all versed in musical antiquities, of 

 even later generations, ever imagined that either 

 Purcell or Handel was the composer of the tune. 



Good Mr. Latrobe was oiF his guard when lie 

 confidently asserted the tune to be the composi- 

 tion of Claude Goudimel. The Society for Pro- 

 moting Christian Knowledge fell into the same 



